Thales Publishes the '2026 Bad Bot Report'

Thales released its '2026 Bad Bot Report,' revealing that bots account for 53% of global internet traffic, with 40% being malicious. AI advancements have created a new 'AI agent' traffic category, making it difficult to distinguish legitimate from malicious automation. Cyberattacks are increasingly targeting APIs and authentication systems, bypassing frontend defenses to exploit core business logic, heavily impacting the financial sector. In Japan, malicious bot traffic rapidly increased to 26%. Thales advises shifting to a governance-based approach combining visibility and behavior analysis.